Law Enforcement

Genova 2001 Practically the entire staff of the Bolzaneto barracks during the days of the G8 in Genoa in 2001 was convicted of abuses and violences against the demonstrators arrested. Police officers and penitentiary agents, and even the 4 doctors serving in the barracks: 44 people were convicted. The judges have spoken of torture, but the crime does not exist in Italy, and the sentences after 9 years have all fallen under a statute of limitations.

The appeal sentence is still a partial positive news because it reverses the ruling of first instance trial in which there were only 15 convictions and 30 acquittals, and thus allows victims, italians and foreigners, to claim 10 million euros in reparations from the Italian state. Remains the problem of the crime of torture, which should be part of our legal system following the UN Convention Against Torture, inhuman and degrading treatment, ratified by Italy in 1989. Unfortunately in 21 years our "busy" Parliament has not yet found the time to make a law to apply it in Italy.
For this reason, only seven defendants did not benefit of limitations. Even those convicted will not go to prison, and for the moment will remain in active service until the final grade of the trial. So is the sentence a good news or not? is good news for a place like Italy, where impunity of police violence is usually the rule. In a civilized country law enforcement officials should always have identification numbers, and after systematic violence as happened in Genoa in 2001 our country would have needed a commission of inquiry to investigate the work of police and the responsibilities of the leadership. But the Commission was never approved and the chiefs were all acquitted.
In Ferrara meanwhile three other policemen were sentenced for obstructing justice following the death of Federico Aldrovandi, who was killed in 2005 by 4 police officers. Mild sentences, as the ones inflicted on the perpetrators of the crime, for "culpable excess" in arresting the victim. Better than nothing, if we consider the stories of Aldo Bianzino, Manuel Eliantonio, Niki Aprile Gatti and many others who have died in prison without any guilt, without any guilty officer found. And also for the death of Stefano Cucchi have yet to be identified the culprits, if they ever will be.
A few sentences are certainly not enough to resolve the terrible situation of civil rights in Italy, of which the majority of televisions doesn't speak and of which therefore the majority of citizens doesn't know anything. As few worries about so many innocent detainees in the centers of Identification and Expulsion for immigrants, guilty of nohing, except existing.
Citizens should ask what kind of police they want to have. One faithful to the Italian Republic and the Constitution, that defends decent people and justice, or one composed of ruthless thugs that the Power uses for its dirty work. It is not a small difference, because only in the first case our country can still be called a democracy.